Large storage environments comprising Data Centers that are physically and/or logically separated from one another are rapidly replacing stand-alone storage environments. In such large storage environments, data must frequently travel over different networks using different communication protocols in order to reach their destinations. There is a strong interest among Service Providers (SP) in providing Cloud services, and ideally, SPs are interested in offering Cloud services using their existing IP infrastructure. Unfortunately, current Data Center interconnect solutions have significant limitations. It is therefore desirable to provide improved Data Center interconnect mechanisms for multicast transmissions.